Fra Spero's nod of goodbye was cheery enough. He was thrilled to see you. But as you got more bored, more restless, he did not stop your considerations of departure. It was but one meeting. As you rose to go, he continued to sip at his tea, spinning around to look at something upon his desk.
     The hallway is quiet now. Back towards the nave, the decorations for Christmas still twinkle brightly. Altar candles drip upon their rusted, once gold-plate, bases. The husband and wife seem to have left as well, more than likely to retire to a room in the housing area.
     Hope.
     It's everywhere. Children's pictures on the hall speak of joyful enthusiasm, of families and themselves, of the Fra, La Pieta, of group dinners. Even the tiniest scrawl of stick figures show people clasping hands, big people and small.
     Soon, a feather drops, almost brushing your cheek. Grey and white fluff, it flutters at your shoulder, wending its way to the floor.

     "Hello," comes a man's voice, he scraggly and worn. He comes from the opposite end of the corridor, as if entering from a back door. The man does not walk quickly, a long brown coat tattered and torn. He wears boots, though with gashes, and a skull cap fits over his unwashed head. His face is covered by a scruffy beard, uneven and unkept. "Who are you?" he asks, his Italian fluent. He glances over at Fra Spero's door, but keeps walking past it, towards you.

     So tiny...
     Look at them, all so young...
     And you, Aged Herald...
     You, who has sat upon the Dreamer's Chair as a Sentinel Raven for millennia...
     You, Aged Herald, lately Aspiration's face...
     You have the gall to be depressed...
     Why cannot you, who knows Hope and Dreams, grasp as lightly but as firmly as those stick figures painted by those children. Those children, who have more cause than you and yet who also have more hope than you. You should stand before these pictures and stare at them until you...
     Oh look, a feather...
     And so it goes, the fluff and whisper of a single feather distracts the Herald. Even as it was meant to do, perhaps...
     Yes...
     Kit turns as it barely brushes his shoulder, and follows it all the way as it winds and drops, lifts then dips and then lastly lands. He is staring at it with his hands in his pockets as he first hears the voice.
     He kneels down...
     He takes the feather in a finger, balancing it, then capturing it as he stands. Grey and white. Like a dove's...
     He spins, a moment interrupted when realization strikes. "An... admirer of Fra Spero," his Italian is as fluent, though not accented Venetian. It is more Florentine. He's grey-eyed. He's not a native. "We were just having tea..."
     And watching the paint peel. O, Lord My Master of Dreams and Visions. O, Lady My Mistress of Hope and Heart. It is good you have such servitors. I was never good at standing still and being quiet -- all at the same time!
     He puts the feather in his pocket. "My name is Kit Marlowe," he says.

     "Kit Marlowe," the homeless man mumbles, thinking it a bit funny. Hands remain stuffed in his pockets as he turns to see the holiday art upon the walls. "They are good children," the man says, though he smells of dirt and perhaps alcohol. Scents of the street. "The meek shall inherit the earth," he notes, eyes wandering the pictures and cutouts. "That is what the Bible says..."

     It is a bit funny...
     I'm nothing like an Elizabethan poet-spy...
     It suited me on a college campus, lead singer of an Elizabethan-themed jazz and celtic consort. It fit me then...
     What would fit me now...?
     "They already have, amice," Kit says, feather in hand and hands in pockets. A pivot, and he wheels about to look at the art, the decorations, the stick figures, the photographs. Look at this Good Work. God's Work.
     "God's Grace has already secured it for them. For the good children who have faith, no matter their age, amice." And so he calls the old man 'friend', having gotten no name. Nor minding the dirt, nor even seeming to see it. "God's Grace is a true shelter for those with sense," lips twist, "to duck in out of foul weather." Kit turns then, his face gentling. "Amice, the weather outside has gotten rough. Do you have a pair of gloves, a scarf?"

     The man turns to see you, air escaping his lungs in an audible wheeze. He shuffles over a bit, lines around his eyes crusted with dirt. "Gloves," he murmurs, looking at your hands. A frown, and he brings his hands from the filthy pockets of his long coat, presenting them to you. Peeling and almost black, the answer is perhaps 'no.'

     I will run home naked in the snow...
     He has no fear, there is no hesitance. There is gentleness as his hand comes out. He wonders, how much of that is dirt, how much of that may be due to some illness. Or frostbite. The elements. It is a thought he has as he gently touches. Grey eyes lift from the hands to the man's face. "Amice," he says, "...La Pieta is offering you shelter," he asks, though he knows it must be so. He balances with one hand, watching for any signs of pain or discomfort before fitting his gloves upon the old man's hands. They will fit. Of course they will fit.
     The scarf will be next...
     And then a warmer coat, this wool... this fine wool with its thick lining...
     And then I will look at your shoes...
     "Do you know the story of this place," he wonders, dropping into the sing-song nearly Venetian, his dialect still finding its way. "... this old building once was a church dedicated to praise of God in music. The outer chapel had space for two separate choirs, the two pipe organs glittered, the frescoes were once very colorful, and trumpets would herald out all over the oval hall. Music, cupped to the very ear of God, they said. And they would teach the orphaned children to sing," grey eyes lift to your face, your dirtied face, your dirtied skullcap.
     "One day, La Pieta stopped singing, and she spent many years in silence, seeming forgotten. But it was not so. She just... needed to remember. And now, though the walls need repainting and the ceiling needs repairing and though the organs still are not fixed, there is her voice. You can see it in those pictures. And they still teach the children to hope by singing." He pauses. "It is a good story," Kit breathes, "...about how it is never too late to sing, and the restoration that Hope can give. I will tell it to you sometime..."
     Even though I already have...

     The man watches you curiously as you work, as if uncertain whether or not he should let you so close, or even simply to continue. There is a stiffness as you tell your story. He listens, yet always wary of your actions.
     Gloves are not rejected. There is no wince of pain as you fit your wool over his fingers, just the stare of someone used to the harshnesses of the world. Once done, both gloves and story, the man lifts his hands to see them, rotating them back to front, in seeming wonder and amazement. Only then does he nod, acknowledging that he has heard you and the offer of a story of more.
     "Whatsoever you do," he chimes, "...it said...to my brothers, you do to me." That, recalled from some catechism.
     Above you, on the rafters, a pigeon squawks, one of several that seem to live among the vaulted wood.
     Looking at the gloves again, the man nods, "Grazie," as if said for the first time to a 'normal' person. He seeks no more from you: the coat, shoes, scarf. Instead, he exhales a foul odor, and bows his head in gratitude, already moving to pass you and shuffle on his way.

     Bare hands reveal fine fingers. Callused only as a musician's would be. Rough only where the pressing of strings has made them so. Upon the pads of fingers. Elsewhere and otherwise, strong but soft. Agile. They are not large hands, but fitting to his build. He who is neither large nor small but in that Somewhere In Between.
     "Grazie," he says, and you are already moving. Give what must be given...
     He does not tell you 'You Are Welcome.' No, amice, he thanks you likewise.
     Peace be with you -- and also with you...
     Hands slide in his pockets, and he turns to continue down the hallway. There is a look behind him and then above. The cooing of pigeons, birds that have found their way within God's shelter as well.
     But even though he speaks the words, still their knowledge stops at his skin and his ears. He should speak the story of La Pieta again. He should listen as he speaks it. His comfort could be found there...
     But he does not think of himself now. He thinks of the old man. And whether or not he should have done more. But I will leave my coat and my scarf with Fra Spero. I will tell him to give them to him. And I will find him in a dream sometime...
     Soon. It will have to be soon...
     He thinks this and realizes it has been a long time since the Herald was in the Marches...

Posted by rowan at May 17, 2003 06:17 PM